


Pinnacle

by jujus_writing_corner



Series: Whumptober 2019 [8]
Category: Real Person Fiction, Youtube RPF
Genre: Blood, Clubbing, Gen, Stabbing, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-28 22:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20951873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujus_writing_corner/pseuds/jujus_writing_corner
Summary: Google Chrome and Yandereplier are at a seedy club when a fight breaks out. It's not long before one of them gets hurt.Whumptober Day 8: Stab Wound





	Pinnacle

**Author's Note:**

> Can Chrome and Yandere go two seconds without getting into a fight and getting hurt? The answer is no. Will I ever get tired of writing that scenario? The answer is no :p
> 
> Enjoy!

Contrary to what the name suggests, “Pinnacle” is one of the seediest, shadiest clubs in the city. It’s got a name flashy enough to attract careless tourists, and a reputation that attracts the patronage of the least respectable people in the city.

Which is half the reason Yandereplier likes it there so much. The other half is that they never check IDs.

“This place is gonna get shut down before the year is out,” Chrome mutters from his seat at his and Yandere’s two-person table. Yandere smirks, fruity cocktail in one hand.

“According to the regulars, Pinnacle’s been around forever,” he says, taking a sip of his drink. “It was here before you were made, and Yami’s even been here before for business.”

“Business?” Chrome raises an eyebrow. Yandere laughs and leans in closer to Chrome.

“I’d bet about half the guys in here belong to some gang or another,” Yandere says, hushed but still grinning, “Employees included.”

“Great,” Chrome growls, slumping into his seat in annoyance. Yandere laughs again and ruffles Chrome’s hair with his free hand.

“The safe clubs are boring,” Yandere tells him, “Places like these are where the fun is.”

Chrome does have to admit that the club is at least clean, and the music isn’t too bad, either. It’s a bit of a cramped space, though. There’s people pressed all around him and Yandere at other tables, and the dance floor is packed. It’s the reason Yandere is sitting here drinking instead of dancing; there’s no space available yet. But it isn’t that late, and Yandere can party later than most humans care to. He’s prepared to wait, so long as he has something to drink. Chrome wishes he could get drunk; maybe he’d have more fun.

His attention is eventually grabbed by something happening near the center of the dance floor. Several people have stopped dancing, and seem to be conversing – no, yelling. It’s hard to tell through the volume of the club.

“What’s up, Aka-kun?” Yandere asks him, noticing his staring beyond Yandere.

“There’s some guys arguing on the dance floor,” Chrome answers. Yandere turns around in his seat to look, just as the argument becomes loud enough to attract attention from the other patrons without enhanced hearing.

“Huh,” Yandere says. He thinks. “I wonder if they’re gonna fight.”

“That seems like a strong possibility,” Chrome sighs.

Sure enough, the men arguing start shoving each other, and before Chrome can comment on it, he spies a flash of something silver. The patrons nearest to the fight start shouting, too, and start trying to leave. But the crowd is still impressively thick, and the escape is slow. The men fighting must be in a gang, because other people around the dance floor and at tables start pulling out their own weapons. Mostly knives, but Chrome spies a few pairs of brass knuckles and even a revolver. The other people around begin to shout and panic, too, and before long, the club is swarming with gangsters brawling and people clamoring to get out.

Yandere observes the scene with a slowly spreading grin. He looks over at Chrome with red eyes.

“I told you, Aka-kun,” he says, “This is where the fun is.” He pulls something out of his shirt; not his katana, but a shorter, fatter knife, better for close quarters.

“Yandere,” Chrome warns, “I swear if you even thi–”

It’s too late. Yandere’s already jumped into the fray, knife in hand.

Chrome growls under his breath as he gets up to follow. He’ll admit to being a little worried about Yandere’s safety, but mostly he’s just annoyed at having to stick around in this club. The heaving mass of panicking people is hard even for Chrome to wade through; he imagines it’s only Yandere’s small size and agility that’s enabled him to move deeper into the club with such ease. Chrome’s not really in the mood to get stabbed tonight, so he treads as carefully as possible, avoiding those with weapons.

Before long, though, he bumps into someone with both a pair of brass knuckles and fighting glare on.

“Watch it, asshole!” he yells, rearing back to punch. Chrome catches his fist before it comes close to his face.

“Have you been punching everyone who runs into you? In this packed, tight space?” Chrome deadpans. He tightens his fist, and the man howls as his hand is crushed in Chrome’s. “Have some sense and fuck off.”

The man bolts – or tries to, the crowd is still thicker than syrup. Chrome lets him leave and continues into the fray, but snippets of conversation reach his ears.

“Did you see that? That guy broke Tito’s hand!”

“Let’s show ‘im what happens when people mess with our boys!”

“Fuck me,” Chrome mutters under his breath.

Moments later he’s swarmed by gangsters (it must be easy to get through the crowd when one’s waving weapons around). It’s hard to fight in such close quarters, but Chrome is designed to be good at it. Unlike the first gangster, though, the others don’t flee when Chrome breaks their noses or snaps their knives in two. The energy of the crowd makes them feral, and the support of their metaphorical brothers in arms makes them reckless and relentless. Eventually, though, all have retreated but two, and their attack pattern is nearly unpredictable. Chrome has to wonder if the pair are brother and sister in normal life as well as gang life; it would explain their synchronization. One plays offense and one plays defense, but they switch every second, and they’re both good at avoiding a punch. Chrome knows he’s not as strong as he could be right now, either; the club is hot, so sweltering from the packed bodies that Chrome’s hardware is on the verge of overheating.

Chrome is busy blocking a slash from the man when the woman sneaks underneath and stabs him in the chest. Chrome chokes, body stuttering, as his pain sensors register the damage. _What genius decided to make robots that could feel pain? _he thinks as he grabs the woman who stabbed him by her ponytail and twists her head backwards. He dispatches the brother next, fully sick of this fight and tired of letting his assailants escape alive. He looks down at himself, at the gash near the center of his chest, and watches black oil flow out. All at once, vertigo hits, and Chrome staggers, slamming a hand down on a nearby table to ground himself, other hand instinctively moving to cover his wound. He isn’t squeamish, why is he reacting so strongly? Warning alerts pop up in his mind:

_DANGER: Core breached, functionality at 91%. Repair immediately!_

Fuck.

Now that Chrome knows that, he can sort of feel the notch in his core from the woman’s knife. Of all the things that knife could’ve hit, his core is the worst. Where humans have their hearts, Chrome and his android brothers have their cores: Spherical blocks of metal and hardware about twice the size of a human heart in the direct center of their chest. They store battery power and disperse it accordingly, circulate antifreeze, and keep the unit functioning. A Google unit can lose limbs, have senses destroyed, or sustain traumatic brain injury, and still survive if they keep calm and get repaired within a few hours. But cores are delicate things, and even the slightest damage can be catastrophic. If an arm is severed, the oil can be diverted away to elsewhere in the body to keep from bleeding out. But a core cannot delegate its own functions, so any injury quickly gets worse and worse as the core keeps working. And for a core, expected functionality is no lower than 98%, ideally more, at any time. Anything even slightly lower is cause for concern. 91% is far beyond concerning, and Chrome knows it’ll only get lower from here.

But dammit, Yandere’s still somewhere in the club, and like hell Chrome’s going to leave without him. He’ll probably need his help soon, too, with his core functionality dropping by the second.

The crowd has thinned to a degree since Chrome’s fight started, and the only people still in the club are in pairs or groups, beating the tar out of each other. A few people are sprawled out on the floor, unconscious…probably. Chrome doesn’t care enough to check. None of them are Yandere, so it doesn’t matter. Chrome’s body doesn’t want to move; energy is being diverted to his core, so much so that his fingers and toes start to feel numb and useless. But he pushes himself forward regardless, struggling along to find Yandere. Eventually, a gunshot rings out from the back of the club, and people scatter once more, abandoning their fights to escape. Chrome distantly remembers seeing a gun in someone’s hand earlier in the night, he’s surprised it took them so long to use it. Among the throng of people running from the back to escape the building is, finally, Yandere.

“Hey,” he says, practically skipping up to Chrome. His clothes are splattered in blood that isn’t his, and his eyes are bright red, pupils blown wide. “Some idiot tried to shoot me, can you imagine?” He laughs, but quickly notices Chrome’s listliss posture and how he’s holding his chest. “Aka-kun, are you okay?”

“Got stabbed,” Chrome wheezes. Talking is harder than he thought it’d be. “Nicked my core.”

Yandere’s expression instantly changes to shock. He knows how cores work, Chrome told him about it ages ago.

“What’s the functionality?” Yandere asks, eyes already darkening back to brown.

“Seven…” He sways, only barely catching himself. “Seventy-six percent.”

Yandere says something in Japanese, probably a swear, but Chrome can’t concentrate enough to translate. Yandere goes to his side, pulling the arm Chrome hasn’t pressed to his wound across his shoulders.

“I’ll get us home, don’t worry,” Yandere tells him, “Let’s go out through the back. It’s closer and safer.”

Chrome nods, and the simple motion makes spots appear in his eyes. He’s really in no position to protest Yandere’s decision even if he wanted to. He keeps walking alongside Yandere, trying not to lean on him too much, but he feels duller and heavier with every passing moment. At one point, his vision blinks out for a few seconds and he nearly collapses into Yandere’s side. Yandere yelps and only barely manages to keep him standing.

“Hey, don’t pass out, Aka-kun!” Yandere cries, “You have to walk with me, I can’t carry you!”

Chrome knows. He’s too heavy even for Yandere’s above-average strength. But the thought flits out of his head a moment later as more and more of his energy goes to support his fluttering core. His feet and hands are numb now, hard to walk on, hard to grab with. By the time Yandere gets Chrome to the employees-only back door, the numbness has reached Chrome’s elbows and knees. Yandere pushes the door open with the shoulder Chrome’s not leaning on and pulls him into the night air and out of Pinnacle. Chrome can hear the crowd on the other side of the building, hear sirens in the distance getting closer.

“Dammit, of course,” Yandere mutters, “Now we have to go through the alleys to avoid the cops.”

Chrome’s body is just about done moving, though, and he sags, slumping against Pinnacle’s back wall.

“Can’t go,” Chrome gasps. He coughs, and oil comes up.

“Okay, okay,” Yandere says, frantic, “I’m calling Yami, he’ll get out of here.”

Chrome can feel his core pulsing painfully. The notch has morphed into gaping cavern, leaking power.

“Core’s…” Chrome coughs again. “Thirty-eight…percent.”

A core doesn’t need to hit zero for an android to die. It can happen any time once the functionality hits 20%. Chrome’s chest feels like fire. It’s the only thing he can still feel.

“You’ll be okay, Aka-kun, you’ll–” He pulls his cell phone away from his ear, face drawn with anguish. “_Chikusho!_ Answer me, Yami!!” He presses a button and puts his phone back to his ear. “It’s only twelve-thirty, you have to still be up!”

“Wilf…?” Chrome can’t finish the question. Too much effort.

“He shot his phone yesterday and hasn’t replaced it yet,” Yandere answers, shivering with nerves as he waits for Dark to pick up. Chrome suddenly realizes that Yandere is crying. “Oh god, fuck, fuck, he has to pick up, I can’t get you home in time–”

“Yan…” Chrome gasps. He tries to lift his hand to wipe Yandere’s tears, but his arm won’t move anymore. “Onii-san…s’okay.”

Yandere bites his lip and brushes Chrome’s hair out of his forehead. There’s oil on his hands. There’s oil all over.

“I’ll be okay when you are,” Yandere tells him, voice shaky. “So just stay awake for me, okay, otouto?”

Chrome nods weakly, leaning into Yandere’s hand as it moves from Chrome’s hair to his cheek.

“Yami?” Yandere suddenly gasps. “Oh my god, Yami, I need your help! Aka-kun and I are at Pinnacle, at the back door, and Aka-kun got stabbed! It hurt his core and he’s dying Yami, please–”

There’s a rushing of wind as something like a black hole opens up in front of Chrome and Yandere. In only a moment, the rushing dies down and the smoke clears, leaving Darkiplier standing there, phone still in hand.

“Yami,” Yandere gasps, relief heavy in his tone.

Chrome is glad that Yandere is relieved. He’s almost forgotten that he’s the reason Yandere’s upset in the first place. Everything feels distant now. His body is beyond being numb; it doesn’t feel like his. Even his chest, even his sputtering core feels dull and chilled. The gash continues leaking energy, festering in his chest. Objectively, he knows this, but he cannot feel it, he cannot speak, and he cannot keep his eyes open.

Dark, meanwhile, doesn’t say a word, only teleports the group back to Ego Inc. in a flash of dark smoke. The void, for all its cold and emptiness, feels no different to Chrome than the night air outside of Pinnacle. It only looks darker, and darker, and darker, and Chrome cannot stay awake long enough to see where Dark has taken him.

**Author's Note:**

> Chikusho = Japanese equivalent of "dammit"
> 
> Also, Pinnacle is not a real club in LA as far as I know. If it IS a real club that is not terrible, then I apologize.
> 
> Btw, don't worry too much about Chrome. He'll be fine. Probably.


End file.
